Submit Coop Design Pictures For The BYC.com Site!!

[Poison Ivy]

I have had the sand pit area for a year now and they have never been interested in taking a dust bath in it. They take their dust baths out side in their run area. I like that the coop stay clean with the sand box under the roosts. Plus I found a long handled cat litter scoop at Pet Supermarket that works great. Its long enough for me to reach the very back of boxes for cleaning.

I'm going to day to buy more sand. I have to buy sand about every 4 months or so to keep the levels deeper. I use to just have all hay down but it got smelly and packed down. So I just figured I'd try sand to see how that worked and I like it so much better. Let me know how it works for you if you decide to go that route.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
Stacey -

I went through a long process to find something. Many of the poultry companies have wall hung feeders. They call them "hoppers" and you will find lots of them on the Internet. There were two problems with what I found, however. Most of them are pretty large, often as tall as 36" which wouldn't work in my space or for my small number of chickens (3). The other problem is that they're very expensive!

So, what I did was to use two solid-bottom rabbit feeders that I found at the feed store and mounted them side-by-side. They were inexpensive and I liked that they had a lid on the top which I wanted in case we had an extra bad rainstorm. I didn't want any leaking from the window to allow the food to get wet. So far, it hasn't been an issue anyway since it never rains in California.

Here is a picture of something similar to what I used:
http://www.havahart.com/rabbit/feeder_3128.asp

Now, the downside with these kinds of feeders is that one of my girls had a grand ol' time scooting the food out of the feeder and on to the floor. But, we outsmarted her! We decided to change from mash to pellet and it hasn't really been a problem since.

 

[allen wranch]

I use baby pig feeders and attach them to the doors of each stall in my coop. They also do not take up a lot of room and hold about 7 lbs of food. This one was modified to keep the chicks from roosting on it and from scooping the feed out. For larger birds, I don't need a top, and not all of my birds scoop the feed onto the ground. ???? You can also get one a little wider to hold more feed.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Forgot to address your external nest box idea.

We don't have the extreme weather here, so someone else should probably address the issue of frozen eggs. We did an exterior nest box for the precise reason that we had limited space. If you wanted to, you could probably build your feeding area under the next box to save space, but it might limit your access to the food. Maybe someone has done this successfully and will speak up.

One nest box is sufficient for 4 - 5 birds, but two might be better if you end up with 5. My three girls have one box and we've never had a problem. You might want to look for birds that are less likely to go broody if you only have the one box. The Henderson's chart will help with that.

It is likely that your girls will end up spending more time indoors during those colder months, so space will be important. You're smart to be thinking about this ahead of time.

 

[Dawn419]

Childrens Playhouse Coop

This is a playhouse that we bought, all we had to do was put it together. It measures 78" x 78" x 78" and will house our Banty's. The windows and "ventilation/open area" above the door are covered in hardwire cloth for predator proofing.

Here's the album on how we put it together. http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2099001040

I was going to use it as an outdoor brooder also but since it has warmed up here, I'm getting crazy temperature fluctuations and am setting up a brooder inside.

 

[ozark hen]

good idea, Dawn419. thanks for sharing your ideas and photos.

 

[gracie47]

i still think these pictures of the chicken coops are to big i only have 2 chickens where everybody else had more i just need to make a little coop any picture ideas and by the way what is a tractor ?

 

[ozark hen]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4142
go here and look at this person's tractor/coup. It fit the bill for them while they made a coup. This is all you would need.

 

[allen wranch]

A chicken tractor or ark is a small moveable coop that is used to transport the birds around different parts of the property so they can get the goodies in the ground.

Try this website for some more tractors and coops:
http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html

Remember these small coops are usually light weight and you have to be extra careful about predator control. A dog or coyote can turn one over or dig under very easily.

 

[Poison Ivy]

When I had just two chickens I use a dog kennel/run with a roost and a cat litter box with hay for the nest. It worked out great and I could move it when I needed to mine was a 5x6 chain link kennel. Price was right at that time.